Sheffield conveyancer says its too late to meet stamp duty holiday amid calls for scheme to be extended

In July, the Government increased the nil rate band of residential stamp duty in England and Northern Ireland from £125,000 to £500,000 to boost house sales following a drop in the market due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

However, the scheme is set to end next month meaning that would-be buyers will have to find as much as £15,000 more to buy a home if their mortgage applications are not approved before the March 31 deadline.

Neil Riley, Taylor and Emmet's head of residential conveyancing, said many factors are currently limiting the speed of moves – such as delays in the issuing of search results, delays in mortgage offers being issued, as well as problems in the chain - making it highely unlikely that any new applications will meet this deadline.

He said: "There is a lot of pressure in the system currently to ensure individual transactions complete before the deadline. We would welcome any extension in the incentives which are currently in place.

"People are working extremely hard, there will be instances where for whatever reason a client is unable to complete a transaction and there is the fear that if the stamp duty holiday is not extended then we may see a significant number of fall through transactions.”

He added: “Since the new year, we have been advising clients who have bought a property that we can’t offer any guarantees that they will be able to take advantage of the stamp duty holiday.

"From January to the end of March is around 12 weeks and on the basis that the average conveyancing transaction is around 20 weeks – 20 weeks into 12 weeks just doesn’t fit.

"If someone went to buy a house tomorrow thinking they could save up to £15,000 on stamp duty, realistically they aren’t going to be in a position to take advantage of that.”

Taylor and Emmet has seen property sales and purchases soar and this has resulted in more files being opened than ever before – with 928 new instructions received in September alone, a 63 per cent increase on the same period last year.

Mr Riley explained: “The first lockdown essentially brought a halt to the conveyancing market. The problem there was that estate agents weren’t able to open, people couldn’t do viewings, removal companies weren’t able to operate and, other than people who needed to move in fairly exceptional circumstances, nobody was able to move.

"We saw a shutdown of the building conveyancing market from March, seeing restrictions start to ease in June. What happened then was a surge in demand across the market.

"On top of that the stamp duty holiday was announced and we saw demand go through the roof at that point. At the same you’d also got pressures on the capacity and the system to deal with the volume of conveyancing and that’s not specifically Taylor and Emmet, that’s across the conveyancing sector.”

MPs will now debate a petition in Parliament, titled ‘Extend the Stamp Duty Holiday for an additional 6 months after 31st March 2021’, which has over 124,000 signatures.

In these confusing and worrying times, local journalism is more vital than ever. Thanks to everyone who helps us ask the questions that matter by taking out a digital subscription or buying a paper. We stand together. Nancy Fielder, editor.